Nicholas Hammond
Nicholas Hammond (born May 15, 1950) is an actor best known for his roles as Friedrich von Trapp in the film The Sound of Music, and as Peter Parker/Spider-Man on the CBS television series The Amazing Spider-Man. Biography Early life and career Born in Washington, D.C., Hammond was 10 when he made his movie debut in Lord of the Flies. Shortly after filming Lord of the Flies Hammond appeared in the Broadway play The Complaisant Lover in 1961. Nine years later he appeared in his second Broadway play, Conduct Unbecoming. Besides his subsequent work as Spider-Man, Hammond's most visible screen role was as Friedrich von Trapp in the 1965 hit The Sound of Music. In 1972 he starred as Peter Linder in Skyjacked alongside Walter Pidgeon and Charlton Heston. In 1973, he made a guest appearance on The Brady Bunch, in the fourth-season episode #090 "The Subject Was Noses", as the high school hunk Doug Simpson who loses interest in Marcia after her tragic football accident. That year he also appeared in an episode of The Waltons, called "The Townie" as Theodore Claypool, Jr. After making the transition from juvenile to young leading man, he spent several seasons in daytime soaps such as General Hospital. He also appeared on many television shows of the 1970s including Hawaii Five-O. He remained close friends with all six of his Sound of Music siblings; in fact, during their reunion on the 40th anniversary DVD, he went so far as to say, "You're my best friends in the world". In late 1970s, Hammond re-joined fellow The Sound of Music alumna Heather Menzies (who played Louisa von Trapp) for one episode of the TV adaptation of Logan's Run. He contributed to the book The Sound of Music Family Scrapbook. Spider-Man Hammond starred in The Amazing Spider-Man TV series from 1977 to mid 1979. The series aired sporadically on CBS, with 13 episodes airing over two seasons. A pilot movie appeared in the fall of 1977, with the series returning as a mid-season replacement for five episodes in the spring of 1978. While the show did well in the ratings, CBS was unwilling to commit to a regular timeslot. The second season aired six hour-long episodes in the fall of 1978 and winter of 1979, with a final two-hour episode concluding in the summer of that year. Hammond was the first actor to portray Peter Parker and Spider-Man in live-action. (The Electric Company aired "Spidey Super Stories" starting in 1974, the first live-action portrayal of Spider-Man, but the serials did not feature Peter Parker.) Even though Hammond played Peter Parker in the television series, in all of the scenes in which Spider-Man is seen performing stunts or without dialogue, a stunt double was filmed by a second camera unit. Later career After the Spider-Man series ended, Hammond guest starred on a number of top-rated TV shows of the early 1980s including The Love Boat, Magnum, P.I., Murder, She Wrote and recurring roles on Falcon Crest and Dallas. After being cast as yachtsman Dennis Conner in an Australian TV miniseries in the mid-1980s, Hammond liked the country so much, he decided to stay and later became an Australian citizen. Since then, he has appeared in several television miniseries that have been filmed in Australia, including Moby-Dick, On the Beach and Salem's Lot. Hammond had a starring role, as "Sir Ivor Creevy-Thorne", in Mirror, Mirror, an Australia/New Zealand extended miniseries (a complete story of 20 serialised episodes, with cliffhangers between each of the episodes). Hammond also guest-starred in various Australian television series, including satirical television programs such as BackBerner and CNNNN, and the science fiction program Farscape, and also dramatic series such as The Flying Doctors, MDA and the Australian / United States co-production Mission: Impossible (which was filmed in Australia). In 2005 Hammond portrayed television producer Aaron Spelling in Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure, a fictionalized television movie based on the creation and behind the scenes production of the 1980s prime time soap opera Dynasty. Hammond is also a writer for Australian television, having written both the miniseries A Difficult Woman and the TV movie Secret Men's Business. In 2009 he made his directing debut with Lying Cheating Bastard, a play he co-wrote with magician James Galea. Personal life Hammond was married to Laura Hammond from 1980 until they divorced in 1984. Filmography References External links * Category:American emigrants to Australia Category:Australian male actors Category:Living people Category:Princeton University alumni Category:Australian television writers Category:1950 births